Karma Circle 03: Older Brother, Younger Sister
by Dibsthe1
Summary: A tale of justice and retribution, inspired by a folk tale from... yeah, Korea! How'd you know?


I don't own Invader Zim. And I sure don't own the concept of karma.

It is never too early to introduce children to the fact that their actions have consequences. Indeed, it could be argued that after learning the ABCs and remembering never to play in traffic, this is the most important lesson of childhood.

Stories very similar to this one have been circulating around the Far East for centuries, both warning and reassuring that those who poorly treat other people, animals, and yes indeed, even plants, will eventually reap their just desserts. As this tale has seen multiple versions already, I trust that the Orientals will not object to just one more variation.

**Older Brother, Younger Sister**

_(A/N) Hello again, and welcome to Karma Kindergarten. I am your teacher, Dibsthe1. Does everybody have their milk and cookies? Okay, now it's Story Time! And after Story Time, we take a nap. NO! No nap now! Story Time. Yes, Story Time. Story time now._

_Story time..._

Once upon a time, sometime in the near future, an older brother and a younger sister lived in a town similar to your own... so why am I using the past tense if it's the future? Because it's a story.

Nobody knows exactly what happened to their mother, and their father was away at work all the time. Why? Because he had, uh, he had two jobs. What were they? A scientist, and one of the guys on TV. So he was sort of like Bill Nye the Science Guy... but okay, his show had more explosions.

So the brother and sister were left alone a good bit. Sounds good, you say? Nobody to tell you to go to bed? Well, let's see.

The older brother's name was Dib. Just because he happened to be one mere year older, he got expected to do a lot more around the house. A lot more turned into a whole lot more, because his younger sister Gaz was just about the laziest and most selfish younger sister who ever existed. She refused to do a tap of work around the house, preferring instead to play video games while her brother Dib did all the chores. She appreciated not a thing of what her older brother did to keep the house going; in fact she threatened him if he didn't bring her whatever she wanted when she wanted it. You'd enjoy that? Well, would you enjoy being Dib? Didn't think so!

It was Dib's job to look after Gaz and Gaz's job to look after their puppy, but she found even that too much trouble so Dib ended up looking up after them both. And through it all Gaz just kept right on playing her video games.

Dib was an unexplainable anomaly, a brother without a sister. He did this and that for her, and for reasons I can't even start to imagine, let alone begin to explain, actually watched out for her even though she treated him worse than the dirt under her toenails.

Gaz returned all of Dib's care and concern with insults and with threats to physically assault him if he so much as talked when she didn't feel like listening. Dib knew this was unfair, but he didn't dare protest because if he did, Gaz would certainly beat on him. Gaz only cared about whether something was being fair to _her_.

Dib even cared for people outside his immediate family. Realizing that one of his classmates was a hostile alien in disguise, Dib did whatever he could to keep the earth safe and foil the alien's plans. He continued doing this even though his classmates not only didn't believe him, they ridiculed and picked on him for his efforts.

One day after skool, Dib was chasing Zim, the alien, with a video camera. He was trying to record proof... as if more could be needed... that this bright green "normal human wormbaby" with neither nose nor ears was something other than what he claimed to be. As Dib paused under a tree and looked around, wondering where Zim could be lurking now, he noticed a faint cheeping sound. Glancing down to satisfy his curiosity, Dib saw a bird fluttering at his feet, one wing stretched out uselessly. At that moment Zim took advantage of Dib's distraction to burst out of his hiding place and run away. By the time Dib noticed him, Zim was too far away for Dib to get a good picture.

As the alien ran away triumphantly shouting something about pitiful humans and inferior earth stinks, Dib shook his fist. "I'll stop you yet, Zim! Maybe not today, but... some other day!"

Dib could see that the bird's wing was broken, so he decided to stop chasing the alien long enough to make sure the bird was safe. "If the earth is destroyed later on this afternoon we'll all know whose fault it was," he grumbled. Not that Dib resented helping the bird; he was just terribly worried about the earth being destroyed.

Dib gently picked up the bird and went home. He found Gaz sitting on the couch playing video games, just like always.

"Gaz, do you know if we have any old bird cages anywhere?"

"I don't know and I don't care but if you don't shut up I'll doom you so bad you'll end up in hospital."

Dib climbed the stairs to the attic and looked around to see if he could find anything that he could use as a bird cage. He found a very chewed rubber bone, a puppy dish, and an old collar, but he couldn't find any old bird cages or even anything that could serve as one.

Dib went straight to the pet shop, where with his own allowance he bought a brand new bird cage in which to place the bird. He paid the rest of his money to the vet who set the bird's broken wing. He returned home and set the birdcage on his computer table. Each day before running out to save the earth from Zim yet again, Dib cleaned the bird's cage and gave it seeds and fresh water, talking to it the whole time. The bird would cock its head as if listening to every word.

Finally one morning Dib saw the bird fluttering around inside the cage, which told him that its wing had healed. Dib took the cage outdoors and opened the door, allowing the bird to fly away, free once more. Dib was by now so used to having the bird around that he was sorry to see it go, but he was happy that he had been able to help a fellow creature of the planet earth. Dib put the cage away and resumed chasing the alien with a renewed fervor, which means he chased Zim more eagerly than ever to make up for lost time.

One day a little later, Dib was walking home wondering what to try next after another unsuccessful chase. Suddenly he noticed a bird flying unusually close to him, and realized that it was the same one he had helped. He stopped his plotting against Zim long enough to talk to his old friend. "Hello, little bird, how have you been?"

The bird flew right over Dib, and as it did so, it dropped three seeds into Dib's hand.

Well, even in stories, no ordinary bird ever did this. And with his exhaustive knowledge of the supernatural, Dib also knew three was the magic number... which meant that if he planted these seeds, something special was sure to happen!

Dib cleared a patch in a secluded corner of the back yard and planted the seeds, then began caring for them as closely as he had cared for the bird. Each day he watered them, weeded them, and swept away the insects before setting out to chase after the alien once again.

One day Dib noticed that three gourds had appeared, one on each plant, but he waited until they were ripe before going to harvest them.

When autumn came, the gourds were huge and Dib finally took a basket out to his little garden. But before he could get started picking anything, the smallest gourd popped open, and out came a remote control space ship. It was the very best one you could imagine, but Dib had outgrown his interest in such toys; he had much more important things to do now, like save the earth. His next thought was to give it to Gaz, but Gaz had never once shown even the slightest bit of interest when he tried to share his interest in outer space with her; indeed, she threatened to doom him if he didn't shut up about it. "I know!" said Dib. "I'll donate it to the children's hospital."

Dib set the wonderful toy aside and went to open the middle-sized gourd. Before he even touched it, that one also popped open, and out of it came a brand new GameSlave. Dib was far too busy keeping the earth safe to spend much time on video games. and Gaz already had a GameSlave, so he decided to donate this to the children's hospital too.

Finally, right before Dib was about to open the last and biggest gourd, it too popped open, and out came a wonderful gadget that was so marvelous even I can't tell you what it was.

"This is great!" cried Dib. "I really wanted and I can really use one of these!" After placing that item in his room, Dib set out for the children's hospital with the other two.

When Dib came home, he had such a great big smile on his face that Gaz couldn't help noticing it. She immediately got insanely jealous because Dib was smiling and she wasn't. This was an outrage; this wasn't fair! She wanted Dib to tell her what was so funny so she could take his smile for herself, and the only reason she could think of for anybody smiling was that they'd seen somebody else get hurt.

"Tell me how fast the car was going when it ran over somebody, Dib, and tell me how badly he got hurt."

"Huh? Nobody got run over, Gaz."

"Then somebody fell off of a building. How tall was the building."

"No, Gaz, nobody fell off a building."

"Well somebody missed their bus!"

"What? No, Gaz, nothing bad happened to anybody."

"Then why are you smiling."

"I gave a couple of things to the children's hospital, and it made me feel good!"

"It never makes me feel good."

"Well, did you ever give anything to the children's hospital?"

Gaz stared blankly as if the question had sailed over her head and gone right past her.

"In fact, other than a beating up, did you ever give anything to anybody?" Dib asked.

"I always feel good when I give something to myself! What did you give to THEM instead of to ME!"

"It was a remote control space ship."

"Eh."

"And a... uh, a GameSlave."

The room fell silent. Not even Gaz's game made a sound.

"You. Had a GameSlave. You. And you didn't give it to ME!"

"Gaz you already have one!" Dib was as puzzled as if Gaz had been jealous of a kid with two rear ends.

In a blinding rage, Gaz dropped her own GameSlave to the floor. She twisted the front of Dib's shirt with one fist as she drew back the other. "Everyone knows I! AM! The Girl... Gamer... QUEEEEEN!" she screamed. "Where did you get it, Dib, I want one too!"

Dib answered Gaz's question so that she wouldn't beat him up; this fic could no longer be listed in the Humor category if she did. "I nursed a bird with a broken wing back to health and it came back with three seeds and one of them grew a Game Slave."

Gaz's grip tightened, her eyes narrowed, and her teeth gritted. "I always knew you were crazy but that's just STUPID!"

"That's how it happened, Gaz! Really and truly!"

"You really are asking to be doomed." Gaz braced her feet and prepared to batter him.

"Would I lie to you about GameSlaves Gaz?"

"No, I guess not." Gaz knew just how afraid she could make Dib, and miserable, bullying coward that she was, she relished every bit of it. She let Dib go only when her fist began to ache from so tightly clenching his shirt. "Well, that's easy. Any idiot can do that. After all, you did it, so that means I can certainly do it. And I will do it, because I am owed a GameSlave.

Gaz went outdoors and walked around for a little while, searching the ground for an injured bird. Finding none, she began looking for a bird's nest. When she found one, she picked up a stick and knocked it down. This bird didn't have a broken wing, but Gaz soon made sure that it did.

Gaz helped herself to the bird cage Dib had used. He didn't need it any more, but that wasn't the point. Gaz wanted it so Gaz took it... without asking.

Gaz didn't bother to bring the bird to the vet because that would have cost too much money, money that she considered better spent on more video games and pizza. She wrapped an old sock around the bird's wing before throwing it into the cage with some water and some stale cereal that even Dib wouldn't eat. She kept a close eye on the bird, that is, when she wasn't so wrapped up in her video games that she didn't notice anything else.

Finally this bird too began fluttering around in the cage. Gaz took the cage outdoors and threw the bird into the air to make it hurry so she'd get her GameSlave, her other one, faster.

Every day Gaz would watch the skies, not for alien spacecraft as Dib did, but for the bird coming back to give her her reward for all her hard work.

Finally one day she saw the bird flying back. "About time," she snarled and held out both hands to catch the seeds. The first two fell right away, but when the third was a little slow in coming Gaz got impatient and threatened to break the bird's other wing unless it coughed up exactly as many seeds for her as it had for her stupid, lazy, useless, idle brother.

Gaz dropped the seeds on the ground and started up another game. She didn't water or weed the plant or keep the insects away because that would have been too big a distraction and she would then have to doom the plant for making her lose her game.

Finally one day three gourds appeared; Gaz picked them without even waiting for them to ripen and took them to her room so she wouldn't have to share any of what came out of them.

Gaz locked the door, then rubbed her hands. Which gourd was the GameSlave in? The big gourd? The little gourd? The medium-sized gourd?

While she was deciding which one to open first, the biggest gourd tore itself open and out came something gross... swarms of spiders and ants and grubs and bees and wasps and frogs and lizards and garter snakes. Gaz wasn't the least bit afraid, but she was extremely angry. Dib was perhaps the only brother in the world who had never, not even once, even thought about daring to try putting even the smallest insect in his sister's bed. If he had, Gaz would have maimed him far, far more than would have been ample payback for a mere insect. Now that Gaz finally had insects and reptiles galore in her room, she was far from amused.

"I'll doom him!" she hissed. "After I get the GameSlave that is rightly mine for making that stupid bird's wing better, I'll doom him!"

The second gourd opened up, and out came something even more gross... mud and rotten eggs and stinkbombs. Now Gaz was even more angry and even more determined to do something even more extreme to Dib, but she was going to force herself to hold off until she finally got her GameSlave... her other one.

Finally the third gourd opened, but what came out of it wasn't a GameSlave, but a vampire piggy. It flew all around the room, screaming and howling, before smashing and breaking and destroying Gaz's GameSlave to pieces, along with all her games, before flying out the window where Gaz couldn't catch it to doom it.

By this time Gaz was so enraged she couldn't see straight. Every last bit of this was Dib's fault! She stormed out of her room to doom Dib like she'd never doomed him before. The idiotic sounds coming from the television told her that she'd find him in the living room.

Too furious to even watch where she was going, Gaz flung herself down the stairs... and WHOEVER Gaz threw down the stairs when she was in this mood always landed at the bottom with a broken bone...

"DIB! Dib you four-eyed ghost-seeing shadow-chasing IDIOT! Get off your lazy useless behind and get over here and help your poor helpless Little Sister!" Gaz screeched, as if Dib wasn't already calling 911.

This time Gaz had given herself something, all right... a broken leg. Dib tried to put a splint on her leg or at least offer her some extra strength pain killer, but he was in no hurry to get within reach of those swinging fists and gnashing teeth. So Gaz ended up lying on the floor in an agonized heap until the ambulance arrived.

Gaz did get to play the GameSlave Dib had donated to the children's hospital; she was propped up in the hospital bed for three days with her leg in traction.

It took the entire floor full of nurses and orderlies to get it out of her hands when the time came for her to be discharged.

Gaz came home still determined to doom Dib, but on crutches she would find it much harder to catch him.

The End! Yaaay!

_(A/N) What happened to the puppy? That's a whole other story, one I'll tell you some other time._

Ah, yes. Sharing divides sorrows and multiplies joys... and those who want to keep everything to themselves often find themselves with just a little bit more than they bargained for!

The Karma Circle is now closed. Thank you and good night.


End file.
